The first African-American cartoonist published in nationally distributed, slick magazines, he created Esky, the familiar pop-eyed mascot of Esquire.

There he was the cartoonist for the high school's weekly newspaper, which was edited by future International News Service general manager, Seymour Berkson.

A month afterward, he found work with the small advertising firm, Munig Studios, and began taking classes at the National Academy of Design.

He also contributed to The Chicagoan, Cosmopolitan, Ebony, The New Yorker, Playboy, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, Pictorial Review, and Redbook.

Campbell also was the author of a chapter on blues music in the 1939 book Jazzmen, a seminal study of jazz's history and development.

He captures the intensity of the scene: within a few blocks of each other he has cartooned Cab Calloway singing at the Cotton Club, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson doing his step dance at the Lafayette Theater – "Friday night is the Midnight show, Most Negro revues begin and end here."